Write your name and link it to one of your posts (The main character is called NoGender and as the name indicates, does not have a gender, so if you want to speak in the third person use the word “it”).

Write your paragraph (max 200 words with 100 words margin).

Tag someone’s post who wasn’t tagged before and say the following rule in the same phrase “You have 3 days to accept this tag”.

If the person you tagged doesn’t answer or doesn’t want to participate tag other person (again, tag a post and not a page).

Write the Title “Let’s All Write a Book | Chapter 1 | Paragraph X”, being X your paragraph.

It was the same dream again, for a week NoGender was always having the same dream. Drowning… It was funny actually, since “it” had the power of controlling water.

NoGender woke up breathing heavily as always… Next morning would be the final exam for him to be a full edge water bender, but without having proper sleep for a week, NoGender was getting nervous about it… “Its” concentration was not as good as normal, “It” had found itself almost falling asleep countless times while trying to train its skills the best it could and, at this moment “it” was getting anxious that it would just fall asleep in the middle of the exam. With these kind of thoughts, “It” bent over to the other side and fell asleep again.

NoGender was part of one of the most important schools of the kingdom. It was usual for someone to bend any kind of elemental, however only until a certain point… Having really the power to bend an elemental power to someone’s will was extremely rare. Every kid with age of 5 needed to do the national yearly exam to show their abilities, although simple, the exam was enough to see if the bender had enough capabilities to be a “true” bender or not. In thousands of children only 1%, in average, would be good enough to enter this prestigious school. However, being chosen and being in this school didn’t meant they would be benders all their lives, when these already special children got to 18 years old, their powers could just disappear from night to day, because of that, everyone did the final exam in their 18th birthday day, if they passed they could choose which path they wanted to continue and join one of the specialized schools they preferred.

It was no good. The worries and anxieties could only be pushed aside so far before they needed to be dealt with.

OK NoGender thought, this is going nowhere. Might as well get this day started so I can get it over with. It figured the library would be a good place to while away the remaining hours before the exam. It was way too nervous to get any actual studying done but at least it could pretend, that’s what good students did, right? Fake it till you make it! It was starting to get a sinking feeling that making it was always a bit fake anyways. At least the library was close to the main campus.

As NoGender distractedly ambled into the stuffy reading room, with the comfy leather chairs, that were now considerably more patchwork than leather, and the assorted desk and floor lamps that all gave off different lights, it noticed that the room was already stuffed with nervous looking students, all seemingly at a loss as to what to do with themselves.

A tall skinny boy with a smile that was the polar opposite of comforting, caught his eye. If NoGender was this anxious, he could only imagine what poor Schickley was going through, that kid had trouble handling the stress of ordering lunch. NoGender worried about him. As their eyes met, it greeted its friend in what it hoped was a reassuring manner:

If anything, it seemed Schickley was even more nervous than normal. Which was saying something. Just as Schickley was about to answer, a small tremor rocked the floor of the library. Students began looking up from their books, and just then the tremors started getting worse. People screamed in fright, and small cracks appeared in the marble floors of the library.

A real panic now began to take a hold of the students and everyone started rushing towards the great double doors that formed the exit. Schickley and NoGender got swept up in the crowd and lost sight of each other. Then someone yelled ” The doors are locked!! ” NoGender wasn’t someone that was quick to panic, but it began to creep up on “it”. What was going on? But then the worst tremor yet shook the building.

Bookcases began to fall over, and great chunks of the ceiling came loose and started falling on students. NoGender dove under a table just in time, as a big block of rubble crashed down on the space where he had just stood. And then a terrible inhuman howling sound started……..

“Those three previous days of earthquake were absolutely no coincidences, I take.”

NoGender remained nervous under the table. On a different matter; it became more sure of the threat lurking in as inhuman howls endlessly echoed within the library hall. Its concentration got a surprise interruption from Schickley, who was sure to be scarred down his pants anytime then.

“Yo. Wanna go check it out? he teased.
What was with this guy, really…

“I could have sworn that you were deeply intimidated just a while ago.”

Schickley gave it some excited nudges, “This is far different.”
And then a wide, snarky grin.
“God knows how often our people had to deal with these things on a daily basis.”

Tremors died down and the two started tracking the source of those howls. Inhuman was certainly the best description anyone would have come up on the spot; everything else that went along with the sound were along the lines of agony, hopelessness and odd enough, thirst. Just how potent was this dark element, to the point that some would even abandon humanity for?

Reaching the main hall, what the two discovered was absolute chaos. Students scurried frantically around the place, many holding their ears and crying.

“Hey!” Schickley called out to one of his fellow students, stopping her in her tracks. “Is everything ok? Did you get a look at one??” Schickley crowed, gripping the girl by both shoulders, his eyes wide in excitement. “What were they like?”

The girl… Fernelle, right? adjusted her glasses. “They came… they attacked… the school… The teachers… went out to fight them… I didn’t…” before she could finish, the great doors of the hall groaned as they slowly parted to reveal… a teacher, his clothes torn and shredded.

“R… run… run away…” The teacher spluttered, before collapsing. Only then did they notice the hulking, misshapen creature in the shadows behind the doorway.

Black, shiny skin drips with an oily liquid as the creature shambled forward, its wolfish face parting to reveal a mouth full of jagged teeth. The creature’s arms hung behind it, claws dragging across the ground, scoring the granite floor tiles. Lumbering through the doorway, it stood up to its full height, and, eyeing NoGender with sickly yellow eyes, let out a ferocious howl.

The creature locks eyes with NoGender. The three students know they are in trouble and they should run away. NoGender thinks it’s a bad idea though, as it looks onto the eyes of the beast as if it knows what the monster is thinking.

Suddenly, Fernelle screamed and ran away from the monster. In a split second, NoGender and Shickley felt the body of the oily monster pass them. It caught up to Fernelle, and NoGender could only focus on her glasses, as it flies upwards from the swift impact of the monster’s motion. Her severed head hit the ground first while the glasses soon break afterwards. The two looks on as Fernelle’s body slowly turns cold, but then the monster rushes again.

This time, it goes after Shickley.

NoGender pushed him away, and the claws of the monster dug into It’s shoulder bringing both to the ground. Once again, they lock eyes. The monster stares, as if examining NoGender’s face, before opening its mouth.

And then the grandfather clock of the library rang. NoGender scans the place in a panic. The tall skinny boy is immediately concerned and comes over to It’s aid.

NoGender slowly sat up. It looked to see a gaping hole where the shoulder once was. There was no blood. No pain shot through its body. In fact, it felt nothing at all. NoGender saw nothing where its shoulder once was. It tried to raise its arm and found that it was possible. Funny that, there was no shoulder linking the arm to the main body yet the arm still moved.

NoGender looked up to find everyone staring. Not at it, but at Fernelle. Fernelle had been killed in front of them. There was no denying that. Fernelle had walked through the doors of death from which there’s no return. But now, Fernelle’s head was moving. Her head moved towards her body as though being pulled by some invisible force but the two never truly became one. A nothingness linked the head to body. She was pale from the kiss of death, looking more like a broken porcelain doll than a human. Blood that should have covered her neck where the head separated was gone, replaced by nothingness. Fernelle blinked.

A silent gasp filled the room as the unspoken question echoed off the walls. What just happened?

“Move,” somebody growled such a warning from behind NoGender. Before anybody had the time to move, however, a jet of water shot past Fernelle’s disturbing form and aimed straight for the monster’s right eye, with a force NoGender has never witnessed anyone accomplish. The monster howled wretchedly and was sent crashing against the wall in an explosion of debris and black sludge.

Instinctively, NoGender’s eyes scoured the room for the water source for such enormous feat. It was astonished to see that all of it came flowing out of the slit beneath the bathroom door, and that its own left hand was what transformed the ebbing water into the majestic jet that pinned the monster to the wall.

“H-how…” Before NoGender could finish phrasing its question, he felt a hand on its remaining shoulder. NoGender gasped when it saw the shock red hair and opal earrings beneath the black cloak of the person who touched it.

It hadn’t been it after all – how could it ever come to possess such power! It had been her all along – the figure controversial for bending souls rather than natural elements – the Sanguine Necromancer, Ligeia D. Mortem.

“Get back, all of you!” Legeia yelled to the students, who were still in shock about Fernelle’s new porcelain white appearance. NoGender couldn’t help but sit and stare at who was likely one of the most powerful benders of all time. “Hey, what are you doing? I said get back!” Without much thought, Shickley grabbed NoGender from the floor and the two ran towards the other students.

While the students watched with a strange mix of awe and fear clearly visible on their face, Legeia prepared for the the monsters retaliation. As the monster attempted to get up, he through out his claw, which extended towards the soul bender at an incredible speed. Reacting quickly, Legeia once again channeled the power of NoGender’s dismembered arm, knocking it out of its projected path and against the wall of the main hall, after which she bolted forward at an alarming speed.

The monster attempted to throw its second arm, but Legeia was to fast, easily dodging its last ditch effort to stop the high speed bender. Upon reaching the monster, Legeia jumped, pulling a sword from her cloak and slashing the monster head off. “I know that’s not the last of you,” she whispered to herself.

NoGender, despite the damage It sustained and the still missing shoulder, felt eerily fine—stable, as if something is anchoring It. It wondered if the girl Fernelle feels the same..

Why did they bring me here? It wondered, after being separated from the others and escorted to the great castle wherein the most distinguished benders, the primary authority in the school, resides. It was strange seeing them waiting, all seven members of the council headed by the Magister. Stranger still is the pull that It felt towards the soul-bender who was waiting as well.

“I did not agree to this,” Ligeia said with an icy glare directed to It.

“Neither of you have a choice since you have unwittingly bound Its powers to you,” said the Magister. “Old enemies are resurfacing and now old traditions must be kept. Let us be done with this and take It under your wing. Its final test will be you.”

NoGender was utterly confused about it all. But one thing is certain, It is now under the care of one frightening soul-bender. Is this my 18th birthday present? NoGender thought, as the Necromancer strode out greeted by the filtering rays of daybreak. What a terrifying gift.

… and still worried. I wonder if this is how writers feel all the time.
Can’t agree with you more! And major props to Arthifis for his awesome ideas and this generous birthday gift (or is this our gift to him?)

Excellent way to wrap up the chapter!!! And you were concerned! 😀 And now that you said it… It really is funny the birthday thing ahah Now I need to think how to start the next chapter ahah However I already have a small idea how to continue it with your great conduction of the story! 😛